(Yicai) Sept. 20 -- Polestar, a Swedish electric vehicle brand founded by China's Geely Holding Group and Volvo Cars, intends to debut a smartphone by December alongside its newest model Polestar 4 to improve its customer experience.

A high-end Polestar smartphone will be equipped with an in-house operating system developed by a joint venture established by Polestar and Meizu, a mobile phone developer controlled by Li Shufu, Geely's chairman, Thomas Ingenlath, chief executive of the NEV brand, said to media outlets recently. 

The new phone model aims to seamlessly link software, applications, services, and features with future Polestar vehicles, a company insider told Yicai. 

Earlier media reports have claimed that the Polestar phone will be part of the standard package of Polestar cars with a price tag of CNY10,000 (USD1,370) each, more expensive than the other smart vehicle developer Nio plans to launch, which is expected to be in a range of CNY5,000 to CNY7,000 (USD685 to USD959). 

The fields of phones and cars are converging as Chinese smartphone giants such as Huawei and Xiaomi are entering the field of smart cars with different strategies whereas Polestar and NEV startup Nio have announced their respective mobile phone plans.

Industry insiders told Yicai that it may be difficult for car companies to achieve profitability by selling mobile phones alone, but after forming a closed loop with intelligent vehicle data, carmakers can develop more diversified application scenarios and profit models. On the other hand, with the help of a featured Phone, the vehicle will become smarter, as new features such as network sharing, camera, and computing power will make up for the shortcomings of most current automotive products, the insiders added.

"The transformation and integration of the automotive industry has begun, and car manufacturers without the empowerment of mobile phone software will gradually fall behind," Shen Ziyu, chairman and CEO of Meizu, once said publicly. 

Editors: Tang Shihua, Emmi Laine